Dreamer's Blog

Sustainable Development of Metallurgical Industries in India

It was heartening to read the news article in “The Economic Times” dated 24th August 2010 titled “Jairam puts last nail in Vedanta’s India plan”.

It’s an excellent example of Good governance on the part of the MoEF and should act as a deterrent for all others who had been taking, all these years, government clearances as fait accompli and should bring in radical changes in the[ir] company’s attitudes, thinking and rightful actions towards sustainable developments in the country. The companies need to shun away from the unregulated and unbridled greed for material gains at the cost of damaging of our eco-system irreversibly for the next generation to suffer and curse our generations.

This should now teach the[m] company a lesson and prevent them from further damage to our environment, by way of polluting our aquifers, flora and fauna from contamination from Cadmium, Mercury, Nickel, Cobalt, Selenium, Vanadium and other heavy metals, (it need not have to be elaborated here on the harmful effects of these metals, on the ecology and on the human beings, which is already well documented); normally co-occur and get simultaneously extracted in varying proportions along with the mining, mineral dressing and extraction of Zinc, Lead, Copper, Aluminium, etc., and are being discharged unregulated to our ecological system.

The Environment Ministry, has taken a landmark step forward in raising the bar for metallurgical, chemical, e-waste, and all other highly polluting industries to take up sustainability development as a way of life and there are no – any short cuts. This movement of tribal from Niyamgiri, has demonstrated that power is not back with the tribal, it has been taken back by them. The lessons from this peaceful Dongria Kondhs movement should encourage Vedanta to revisit some of their Sidhantas – and align with the “Ten Principles of UN Global Compact”.